COURT BARON

A Court Baron, so called either from the lord or baron who presided over it, or from the freemen, in ancient times also called barons, who were its suitors and judges, was a court, having its origin apparently in notions of a patriarchal jurisdiction, properly and in I the tirst instance incident to every manor, in which it • was held by the lord of the manor or his steward, who, a isted by the freeholders of the manor, there decided r on the purely civil controversies which arose between I them. A court baron also belonged to every hundred i and county (see those titles); and in many cases also to I particular franchises or lordships, which might include I several manors. Courts baron, from the inferiority of their judges, and from the defects of their jurisdiction, which a party might defeat by removal of the cause to a liigher tribunal, have long fallen into disuse; except in manors of ancient demesne, where the jurisdiction was, and in some respect still is, in the first instance exclusive, the lord of such manors having once been the king; and except in manors containing land of copyhold or customary tenure. See Copyhold. [s. 308]